HISTORY + HOPE + HOSPITALITY

PRESS

Efforts to change the Mississippi state flag have received attention from The Washington Post, which did a profile of Laurin Stennis, who came up with a proposed redesign.

Stennis gets more attention than other flag-change proponents because she is the granddaughter of legendary Mississippi Sen. John Stennis, whom the Post unfairly describes as “a legendary champion of… [read more…]

JACKSON, Miss. — Things are slow to change in this Old South bastion. The brass bird cage of an elevator in the Mississippi State Capitol that Laurin Stennis used to ride as a 6-year-old coming to see her daddy was still operated by hand when she stepped into it one day in early January, a 46-year-old coming to shake things up. Or at least nudge things along.

“Ground floor, please, sir,” she said to the operator.

But some things have changed. The lawmaker who greeted Stennis… [read more…]

Laurin Stennis is at the center of a groundswell of support to change the MS State Flag. Why, you ask? It’s because she has designed the proposed replacement. Robert and Sergio sat down with her in her art studio, and after fighting with technical difficulties (hence the sound quality), we talked about… [read more]

February 15, 2018

Visual artist Talamieka Brice executed her vision for a living Mississippi monument as part of JXNSTANDS, a project of the Center for Art & Public Exchange (CAPE) at the Mississippi Museum of Art and OurGlass Media Group. JXNSTANDS is presented in conversation with Birmingham Stands. More info at museumcape.org/jxnstands.

January 22, 2018

Laurin Stennis reaches up to the top shelf next to her desk for a decades-old memento from her late grandfather’s career.

“Look ahead,” says the inscription on the sign he kept on his desk. It’s her answer to people who say Sen. John Stennis would be rolling in his grave if he knew what his granddaughter was up to: Trying to convince the Mississippi Legislature to… [read more]

December 20, 2017

Laurin Stennis didn’t set out to design a new flag for the state of Mississippi any more than she set out to be a block print artist. But, when events present themselves in her life, Stennis knows how to listen, and she’s always willing to take a path untraveled to see where it may lead.

And, though she prefers not to be in the spotlight, she’s… [read more]

October 25, 2017

Does Mississippi’s state flag, adopted in 1894 and the last in the United States to incorporate Confederate imagery into its design, represent hospitality or hostility? To some it depicts history and heritage; to others it stands for a history of hate and injustice.

February 4, 2017

Laurin Stennis loves Mississippi. It’s in her blood.

After all, she is the granddaughter of the late Sen. John C. Stennis, whom she loving called “PawPaw.” After living out of state for 20 years, she returned in late August 2013 when the health of her father, John Hampton Stennis, was failing.

“He passed away in September of that year, and I wasn’t sure… [read more]

February 16, 2016

JACKSON – In Mississippi, the last state to display the Confederate battle emblem on its flag, some lawmakers want the divisive symbol removed, others want to punish public institutions that refuse to fly the banner and a state House leader suggests having two separate but equal flags: one with the rebel cross and one without.

September 25, 2015

September 9, 2015

By the time an aging Jefferson Davis moved into a borrowed cottage on the Beauvoir plantation near Biloxi with a gorgeous view of the Gulf of Mexico, his own life had mirrored the rise, fall and disappointment of the Confederacy. In a storied life, the Kentucky native had helped lead two nations, including one against the other; had owned hundreds of slaves before being forced to let them go; and had been indicted… [read more]